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Monday, February 8, 2016

Super Late Sunday Funday!

I realize that it's way past Sunday now, but I'm just getting around to posting! I flew to the other side of the world last Thursday and have been hanging out in Abu Dhabi for the past few days! It's such a long flight from LA. It took 16 hours to get here, and will be even longer on the way back. This is my first time in the Middle East, and it's a very interesting place! It's very hot in the summer here, but right now the weather is perfect. It's actually just like LA lol. You can tell that there's a lot of money here, and everything is built in luxury. This is the kind of place where you can pay people to do anything for you cheaply. I guess it's very common for people who live here to have live-in maids and chauffeurs. We've had a chauffeur driving us around the whole time here in a nice Audi. He's literally available 24/7 which is pretty crazy to me. But gotta admit it is convenient to have that. But it's definitely a different lifestyle! One thing that kind of threw me off about Abu Dhabi is that there's not as many people around as I imagined. All the restaurants I've gone to have been mostly empty at peak times, and you end up having many more service people around than customers. Maybe I've been going to the wrong places, haha. But food is excellent though! There are many people from different countries here, so you have a huge mix of culinary cultures.

We are staying at the St Regis hotel on Corniche which is right next to the beach, and it is amazing. Here's a picture of the hotel lobby I took, it's pretty grand.

The view from the room is beyond words. Here's a good day time picture:

But on our first morning here, there was a heavy marine layer which I guess is very unusual here. However, since our room is pretty high up, we were above it and this was the view! How cool is that!

Night time:

One of the most popular touristy things to do here is to visit the Shiekh Zayed Grand Mosque. It is seriously one of the most beautifully designed and constructed places I've seen. Everything is white marble and it is huge! I can't imagine how much money went into it. It's free to visit, so if you are ever in Abu Dhabi, it is definitely a must.

Here's a panoramic from the outside!

And this is the inner courtyard view:

There are pools of water surrounding the whole structure, which makes it a lot cooler:

Inside the hallways - this was as many people as I saw so far in Abu Dhabi:

Everything is covered in the whitest marble! Along with these nice decorated carvings.

Look how much detail went into this one window alone... I actually really love the glass mosaic faded look.

I probably took way too many pictures there. But it was so beautiful and I am so happy I got to see it.

Oh yeah, here's the world famous ATM machine at the Palace Hotel that gives you gold bars lol. But it was broken when I was there!!!

Anyway, back to the normal outfit posts haha. Before I left for Abu Dhabi, I did make it to the gym a few times. Not as many as I would have liked. Only twice. But I had so much packing and stuff to do before I left, so I didn't really have time to go to the gym. In fact, I barely slept the couple days before I left!

I read that there actually is a big workout culture here. I hear yoga is pretty huge (there is a Lululemon in Dubai lol). I saw a pretty nice looking gym, and the hotels all have gyms. I haven't been to one myself though. Don't have enough time! I'll try to make it at least once. :)